


Under My Skin

by boombangbing



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:05:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombangbing/pseuds/boombangbing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a broke tattoo artist with bankruptcy in his imminent future, and a bunch of friends like the cast of RENT. Darcy wants to 1) get a tattoo, and 2) tap that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1000 in my continuing series: _I Don't Know How This Got So Long_. Tumblr made me do it, or something.

“What about this place?” Jane asks, stopping in front of a weathered looking shop front.

“Ehh,” Darcy hedges, looking up at it. _Captain's Tattoo Parlour_. “It's looks a little... Doesn't it?”

“They all look a little...” Jane waves her hands vaguely. “C'mon, let's just have a look around, they aren't going to pounce on you and tattoo your face.”

Darcy pats her messenger bag. “Not with my little friend by my side.”

Jane narrows her eyes and shakes her head. “You are too attached to that taser. Come on, get in here,” she finishes, grabbing Darcy's arm and jerking her into the shop. A bell above their heads tinkles as they get through the door. Quaint.

“Hey, can we browse?” Jane asks the girl behind a sturdy looking mahogany desk. Her hair is all done in up in soft blonde curls, her mouth is a perfect red bow, and she's covered in tats. Darcy's starting to feel mighty frumpy in her jeans and sweatshirt.

“Sure, whatever,” the girl says, flicking a page of her magazine with a long, manicured talon. Darcy can't imagine why there aren't any other people in the shop but them.

There's a full wall covered in designs. Most of them are like flowers and hearts and skulls, and this just reinforces Darcy's resistance to getting a tattoo. She likes the idea of a tattoo, but everything is just so... _blah_. If she's going to permanently mark her body, she wants it to be good.

“Hey, these are nice,” Jane says, pointing to the far section of the wall. 

Darcy wanders over and looks at them with a sceptical eye. They're pretty nice. There's all sorts of stuff, robots, spaceships, flying saucers, pin up girls, performing monkeys, stars and planets and... She tips her head to the side. Actually, these are _really_ nice.

“Hey, need any help?” someone says behind them.

“We're just look--” she says as she turns around, swiftly coming to a stop. Jesus _fuck_ , she thinks, as she ends up inches away a solid wall of broad chest and shoulders. Dude looks like a fucking Gap model, complete with perfectly styled floppy hair and a button down shirt tucked into khaki pants, but there are swirly rainbow coloured tattoos just peaking out where his left shirt cuff is folded back and creeping up over his shirt collar that promise a pretty epic sleeve. 

His brows furrow a little as she continues to stare and not say anything. You'd think she's never seen a good looking guy before. (Well, actually, not like this, not in a long long time.) She clears her throat. “Uh, looking, just looking.”

He smiles. “'kay, shout if you have any questions,” he says, in this thick Brooklyn accent. She guesses she shouldn't be surprised, they are _in_ Brooklyn after all, but somehow she didn't expect that to come out of his mouth. Dude's just full of contradictions.

He turns to wander off, and she searches her brain for something, because _shit_ , she hasn't got any the entire time she's been in New York, closing on six months now. She's been starting to think that she's forgotten how to flirt altogether. “So, are you the captain of Captain's Tattoo Parlour?”

He spins on his heel to face her again, a chuckle lighting up his face. “Yeah.”

“Dude, how old are you?” she blurts out. Jane has now joined the conversation, and she frowns at Darcy disapprovingly.

“Um, I'm twenty six.”

“That's kind of young to own your own business.”

“Inheritance,” he says, and holds out his hand. “I'm Steve.”

She takes his hand, noting his ink smudged fingers. Damn, that's kind of hot. “Darcy.”

He smiles again, his blue (like _blue_ blue, not just your run of the mill blue) eyes crinkling up. “Sorry 'bout the ink, I was messin' with somethin' in the back. It's dry.”

“No worries,” she says, smiling back at him. She hasn't quiiite managed to let go of his hand yet.

Jane clears her throat loudly. “Hi, Steve, I'm Jane,” she says, sticking her hand out and shooting a glare Darcy's way. 

Steve drops Darcy's hand slowly and shakes Jane's. “Hey.”

“I'm trying to get Darcy to get a tattoo, but she's being awkward about it. Maybe you could convince her.”

“I'm not being _awkward_ , I'm just not sure what I want. I don't want to get stuck with something I'm going to regret a month later. Like that tattoo on your _ass_.”

Jane turns her nose up. “I don't regret it.”

“Well, you should. People laugh.”

“It's uh,” Steve says as they bicker, trailing off awkwardly. Darcy pointedly turns her head back to him and looks at him expectantly. “It's good to think about what you want, 'specially if you feel like it's somethin' you're gonna regret. It's gotta be... it's gotta have some meaning to it.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” she says. “I don't want, like, a heart on my hip or something, I want something big, something that's a big deal.”

“You want art,” he says.

“Yeah,” she replies, and just looks at him. Oh Jesus, her stomach's doing that weird flip-gurgle thing it does when she has, like, a connection with someone or whatever.

His cheeks seem to be pinking a little, and he glances round at the receptionist. “Hey, Lorraine, can you pull out the book?”

“Uh huh,” she says, getting up slowly and walking into the back.

He turns back to them. “I got a bunch more examples in the book, mostly custom stuff, if you're, you know, interested.”

She smiles. “I'm interested.”

-

Steve, it turns out, does full on consultations about tattoos. She comes back three times to talk to him about it, each time just as undecided as the last, but he seems perfectly happy to talk to her about it at length. There's never anyone else in when she's there, though, so she's not sure if he's blocking out time for her, or just never has business. If it's the latter, she's got no idea why, he's professional, he's ridiculously talented, he's sweet, and he's drop dead gorgeous.

Not that the last one has anything to do with anything, _obviously_ , this is just a business transaction. Even if he won't take any money from her. 'I ain't done anything yet,' he says softly, every time she protests about it.

“Ride him hard,” Jane counsels seriously. “For us all.”

After her fourth visit, she's starting to think that maybe she's just stringing him along. She's got to put up or shut up about this whole tattoo thing.

“I have got to stop wasting your time,” she says, leafing through more of his designs. He's got the squashiest, comfiest cracked leather couches in the back, and she's kind of just sunk into the thing. He's sitting beside her, his knee knocking against hers every time he leans forward to describe something about a particular design.

“You're not wasting my time,” he says, fixing his gaze on her for a moment before dropping his eyes to the book again.

“Seriously? You've got to have better things to do today,” she says.

“Nope,” he says, then frowns. “Not that I mean... It's not like I'm only doin' this 'cause I don't got anything else to do...”

She laughs and he smiles shyly. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I'm not... great with girls. Women. Uh.” His cheeks pink and he shakes his head. “Jeez, I'm makin' an idiot of myself.”

“Do you want to go get a drink?” she blurts out. 

His eyebrows jump up his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, just resisting tagging 'duh' on the end there. Has this dude never looked in the mirror before?

The corners of his mouth tip up. “Okay.”

-

There's a bar nearby that's full of hipsters, half of them saying hello to Steve as they come in. Steve looks increasingly embarrassed.

“Usual, Steve?” the bartender calls.

“Uh, yeah,” Steve mutters, nodding. “I swear I'm not an alcoholic,” he says to her quietly.

“Don't worry about it,” she says, hopping up onto a barstool.

Steve frowns. “I should get you a drink, shouldn't I?” He shakes his head, muttering to himself. “ _Jesus, Steve_.”

She pats him on the back, and can't help but notice how he leans into it a little.

“Bill,” he calls, leaning against the bar, “can I get a, uh...” He looks back at her. “What do you want?”

“Just a beer,” she tells Bill.

“Sure thing,” he says, and grabs a couple of bottle, flipping the caps off and sliding them down the bar into Steve's open hands. Steve passes a bottle to her and settles onto the stool.

“So,” he says.

She grins and clinks her bottle against his. “So.”

He wrinkles his nose up and laughs. “So, uh, where d'you work?”

“Stark Industries.”

“Huh, really?”

“Yeah, but I'm just office admin, it's not that impressive.”

“Still,” he says, taking a swig of his beer. “That guy used to be a weapons manufacturer, right?”

“Yeah, but he had some kind of epiphany five years back. Mostly we make cell phones and medical equipment. We sell the tech high and the med stuff low.”

“That's cool,” Steve says. “Actually, I got one of those.” He digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a phone, putting it on the counter. 

The thing is covered in stickers, Disney stuff and scifi stuff and lots of glittery stuff. She grins and flicks it with her finger, sending it spinning in a circle. “Let a kid at it, huh?”

Steve clears his throat. “I just like stickers. I used to stick them on my arms and pretend they were tattoos when I was a kid.”

“Aw, I bet you were an adorable kid,” she says.

“Ah, well, maybe,” he mutters, looking down at the bar.

She gives his phone another poke. “This is a pretty old model, though, dunno how Stark would feel about that.”

“If he wants to pay for a new one... I'm broke.”

“If you worked for Stark you'd get a new one. We get them standard because we have to project a certain 'image'. A 'not giving money to the competitors' image.”

Steve smiles. “How'd you get the job?”

“Remember the woman I came into the store with a couple of weeks ago, Jane?”

“Tattoo on the ass,” he says, then laughs. “Sorry.”

He has a nice laugh, and she only narrowly avoids blurting that out. “Well, Jane's an astrophysicist and--”

“Wow,” Steve murmurs.

“Yeah. She works at R&D – Stark is into _everything_ – and she put a good word in for me. Which was good, because I got a degree in political science and then realised that I didn't want to work in politics.”

Steve nods, and doesn't say anything. Shit, did she say something wrong? “So, uh, what about you? Why did you become a tattoo artist?”

“I just kinda.. fell into it. I was always... artistic, I guess, and when I was a teenager me and my best friend hung around one of the local tattoo places. He wanted to get one, but we were both under eighteen, so um...” He pulls a face. “Ahh, we stole a tattoo gun and some ink and... I gave him a lop-sided skull and crossbones. Oh man, it looked _awful_. Still does, he refuses to let me fix it.”

“You stole something? Really, you?”

Steve screws up his face and runs his fingers through his hair. “I kinda... stole stuff when I was younger. I mean, I wasn't a...” He snorts. “I wasn't a criminal mastermind, but uh... I don't know, I had kind of a rough childhood.”

“Okay...” she says. Shit, is he going to start sobbing all over her or something? He seemed so normal.

“Yeah, I, uh, I was in the system till I was eighteen. Mom died when I was twelve and Dad...” He looks at her and shakes his head. “Jesus, I said I was bad with women, right?”

“You're fine with Jane and your receptionist.”

“Women I'm attracted to,” he says, cheeks pinking. He looks at the bottle in front of him and laughs. “Wow, beer's great, isn't it?”

After that things smooth out, and by the early evening they're giggling over her endless stupid stories. Steve is pleasingly easy to make laugh. She's been the recipient of many a blank stare over the years, but Steve laughs at all the right places, with a deep, heartfelt laugh, not one out of pity.

Time flies by and by eleven the place is getting pretty rowdy. A couple of guys yell cheerful greetings to Steve, and he nods tightly. “Those guys used to beat the shit out of me when I was a kid,” he murmurs to her.

“Let's get out of here,” she says, wrapping her fingers around his wrist.

He grins and throws some money onto the bar, letting her tug him out of his seat.

They're both a little drunk when they hit the cold air outside, but nowhere near blackout drunk, and not even close to bad-decision drunk, so she looks at him and raises an eyebrow. “You live around here?”

“Couple of blocks that...” He points down the street and frowns, then turns and points the other way. “That way.”

“Invite me over for coffee,” she tells him. Her fingers are still around his wrist, and she can feel the not so steady thump of his pulse.

“Wanna come over for coffee?” he murmurs.

“Lead the way.”

He doesn't even manage to get the light on before they're pulling at each other's clothes, and Christ, he is one hell of a kisser. He smacks his hand against the wall a couple more times, finally hitting the switch and lighting up the room.

“D'you think we're...” he stammers out between kissing her. “Fast? I don't normally... do this after... ah, one... date.”

“Pretend the consultations were dates,” she says close to his ear, hiking her hands up under his shirt. “They were longer and went better than most of my dates.”

He scrabbles to unbutton his shirt. “'kay,” he breathes, leaning forward to kiss her again.

She grabs his hips and leans up on her tiptoes to kiss at his neck. There's a particular spot near his ear, she discovers, that makes him whimper and scrabble faster at his clothes, flinging the shirt away and quickly dispensing with his undershirt.

The sleeve is just as epic as she'd imagined, going from his left wrist all the way up to the base of his neck, all swirly colours and patterns. “Damn,” she murmurs.

He grins and takes her hand, tugging her across the room. “Bed,” he says. They get about four steps before they arrive at the bed and she takes a second to look around his place properly. It's a studio, she realises, and a small one at that. The bed is about ten steps away from the kitchenette and he doesn't even have a couch.

“This place is _small_.”

“Like I said, I'm broke.” He pulls his belt free and pushes his pants down. She follows their path downwards because, come on, she's got a pulse. He's got tattoos all over his legs too, a whole assortment of things that Darcy could probably look at for hours if she wasn't so fucking horny.

“Um,” Steve murmurs, his hands slightly raised. “Are you gonna...?”

She looks down at her fully clothed self. “Oh, duh, yeah,” she murmurs, stripping her t-shirt off, and shucking out of her jeans. 

Steve gets onto the bed and looks at her like he's never seen a naked woman before. She climbs on after him and kisses him. He drops his hand to her hip and tugs her against him until she can feel his erection pressed flat against her thigh. 

“God, you're gorgeous,” he murmurs.

She gives him another quick kiss and smiles. “Thanks.”

He laughs. “Welcome. Uh, I should probably tell you... I haven't... had sex in a while.”

“Okay? How long?”

He pulls a face. “Three years.”

She can't imagine why a guy that looks like him would be going without for so long, but hell, it'll make her seem a lot better than she really is.

“It's just like riding a bike,” she says.

He grins. “All right.”

It's all over pretty quick. Good but quick. Steve kisses her breasts and her neck and her mouth, and presses his fingers against her clit as he rolls his hips. What he lacks in stamina, he _definitely_ makes up for in skill. She tugs at his hair and scratches at his back and kisses him until she has the best damn orgasm she's had in a while, and from the sounds that Steve is making, he is too. It takes him a couple of long seconds to catch his breath afterwards.

“Dude,” Darcy says, “I didn't mean to give you a heart attack, are you all right?”

He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out, reaching down to deal with the condom. “I'm good,” he says, and grabs a tissue, wrapping the condom up and tossing it into the trash can near the bed, “I'm good.” He rolls onto his side, the sheets getting twisted around his legs deliciously, and smiles at her. “Do you wanna stay? It's late and dark and we're both a little tipsy...”

“Um...” She tugs the sheet up to cover her breasts, because Jesus, she's known this guy all of three weeks and now they're lying in bed together and he's looking at her like a puppy worried it's about to be kicked. “Yeah, okay, sure...”

“I can sleep on the floor, if you want?” he asks.

“No, it's fine...” She looks at his ridiculously innocent looking face and leans over to kiss him.

He lifts his hand and slides it over her cheek and into her hair. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm tired, and you're hot.”

He grins and kisses her again. “Gotta warn you, I snore a little.”

“No worries, I spent all four years of college living in rez, I can handle it.”

-

She wakes up in the morning stretched out in Steve's surprisingly comfortable bed, and after a second it becomes obvious what woke her: coughing. Someone (Steve, she hopes) is coughing and coughing. She rubs her eyes and sits up.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over, with his back to her, and she's struck for a moment the line of stars tattooed down his spine, but he kind of sounds like he's choking, so she puts that to one side. 

“Could you...” he forces out before taking a wheezing breath. “Inhaler... under bed... could you...?”

“Get it? Of course. Jesus.” She scrambles off the bed, realising belatedly that she is buck naked, and searches underneath the bed for the inhaler. It's up at the top of the bed, against the wall, and she has to get right under there to reach it, pushing aside boxes of stuff in her way. She grabs it and pops out the other side, passing it up to him.

He takes a puff and a deep breath, holding it for a moment, before doing it a second time. 

“Fuck,” he murmurs finally, that scary wheezing sound dissipating. “Fuck, sorry. Thank you.”

“'sokay. You're asthmatic?”

“Yeah,” he says, and sighs. “I try not to choke on my own mucus when I have company, though.”

“Dude, chill,” she says. She pokes his ankle. “I like your spaceship tat, by the way.”

“Thanks,” he says, looking down at her. “You wanna get out from under my bed?”

“I do, but I'm naked and I'm feeling some post-casual-sex self-consciousness.”

He frowns. “You got nothing to be self-conscious about, but I'll grab you a blanket.”

Once she's wrapped in a blanket, she goes on a hunt for her underwear and clothes while Steve putters around in the kitchenette in just a pair of clingy underpants. Clearly she's the only one in the room feeling body-conscious right now.

“Hey, d'you want some...” he trails off as he opens the fridge door. “Water?” he finishes.

“Sure,” she says, spotting her bra in the corner by an big old-fashioned radio. Steve's kind of a huge hipster about the 1930s. She stoops to snag it, disturbing a pile of papers on top of the radio on the way back up. “Damn,” she mutters, collecting them up. She intends to just put them back where they were, but the big red 'PAST DUE' jumps out at her. It's a credit card bill for over four thousand dollars, and looks like he's missed at least two payments.

“Here's your water,” Steve says, suddenly beside her and holding out a glass.

“Oh, uh...” She looks up at him then back down at the papers. “I wasn't, uh. I didn't mean to look.”

“It's fine. Swap?” he says, offering her the glass.

She takes it and gives him the papers, then takes a much needed sip of water to cover the moment's awkward silence. Steve smiles and puts the papers down on a chest of drawers.

“So, when you said you were broke...”

“Gonna be bankrupt by the end of the year,” he says.

“Student loans?” Hell, she's going to be paying hers off till retirement, probably.

He shakes his head. “I, uh. I didn't graduate high school, so...”

“Oh, okay. Sorry.” She cringes. “Not that there's anything to be sorry for...”

“I know what you mean. Moving around foster care so much...” He shrugs. “Thing is, I've got...” He pauses again, frowning a little.

“You don't have to tell me,” she says.

“I...” He narrows his eyes thoughtfully, sucking on his teeth for a moment. “I don't want to get really heavy with you, but... I like you a lot, so... on top of the asthma, I've got heart disease. Medication eats through money pretty quick, 'specially when you don't got health insurance. Which reminds me, I gotta take my meds in a minute.”

She blinks. “I... Is it bad?”

“Don't even know I've got it, most of the time. It's just my aortic valve, right around here.” He points to where it is on his chest and smiles. “I just got look after myself and take my meds and I'm okay. Basically, if I went for a run, I'd die, but other than that...”

She laughs shakily. “That isn't funny, dude.”

“You laughed.”

“It was an awkward laugh.”

He smiles some more. “Wanna go out and get breakfast?”

She shrugs. “Sure.”

-

_my friends are having a party later want to come?_

She surreptitiously reads the text message under her desk. They've had sex four more times, and seen five movies together in the last six weeks, so she guesses that they're dating now. She kind of really likes the sound of that. She still doesn't have a tattoo, though.

_sure where/when?_

_my building starts at 7pm or earlier. Whenever ppl get drunk. I think it'll mostly be out of 601 but the whole place is involved. I can come pick you up._

_nah it's good, I know how to get to ur place._

Steve replies with a simple: _:D_

He isn't kidding about the whole building being involved. She can hear the music from a block away and there are people spilling out onto the street from the building when she nears it. She pushes by the stragglers and takes the elevator up to the sixth floor.

601 is clearly the centre of operations, and as she walks in in her white shirt, black pencil skirt, and unattractive mid heel pumps, she feels like she's walked into a production of RENT and she's the bad guy who went over to the corporate side.

It doesn't take long to spot Steve, half a head taller than most of the people in the room. He's talking to a couple of people, and _damn_ , she considers herself to be pretty hot, but that redhead is a fucking knockout, with a nose ring and tats all over, in tight jeans and a tank top. The stocky guy with her is also impossibly cool looking. What the hell does Steve see in her?

She shakes her head. Not today, bad thoughts, she tells herself, and walks over to them.

“Hey,” she says.

Steve's whole face lights up, conversation with his hot friends forgotten. “Hey!” He gives her a hug and a brief kiss. “Sorry about the short notice.”

“No worries. Though, if I had had some warning, I'd have dressed more appropriately for the crowd.”

He smiles. “You look great.” He smooths his palm down the back of her shirt and looks at his friends. “Guys, this is Darcy. Darcy, this is Clint and Natasha.”

“Oh, _this_ is Darcy, huh?” Clint says. Steve blushes a little.

Natasha sighs. “We're pleased to meet you, Darcy. Steve says you work for Stark Industries?”

“For my sins,” she says, and Natasha laughs. “So, what do you guys do?”

“I'm in security,” Natasha says.

“'In security',” Clint repeats, making air quotes. “That's code for 'spy'. She's a Russian spy.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “I sell alarm systems to rich people.”

“So you say,” Clint murmurs.

“You're an idiot,” Natasha dead pans.

Steve chuckles and rests his hand on Darcy's hip gently. She leans into him, and he puffs his chest out a little.

“What about you, Clint, what do you do?” she asks.

“I'm an archer. I teach people how to shoot things with arrows.”

“There's a demand for that?”

“It's a niche market.”

“Clint's the landlord,” Steve adds.

“Really?” Dude looks pretty young to own a building.

Clint shrugs. “I had some savings, I bought it off the thugs who were trying to shake us down for more rent.”

“Clint's the only reason I've got a place to live,” Steve says. “He lets me pay late, or... not at all.”

“Eh, I knew the building was a loss when I bought it, I'm not looking to make money off it. May as well help my friends out.”

Natasha and Clint aren't half as scary as they seem, or as a cool, once they're all on the couch with a couple (of dozen) beers in them. They're still way interesting, though, and she's really not getting why Steve is looking at her rather than Natasha, who's holding court about some loser who yelled at her to get a job while she was walking down the street. Clint is 'oh no'ing and whooping in all the right spots, but Steve is just fiddling with Darcy's hair and being all drunkenly affectionate. She's not complaining, but dude's priorities are all messed up.

“Hey, handsy,” she murmurs when he slides his hand over her outer thigh.

“Hey. Is this okay?” he asks, worrying his lip for a moment.

“Course it is.”

“Good,” he replies, nuzzling her shoulder. “'cause I really like you, Darce.”

“I really like you too,” she replies quietly. 

Steve smiles, seemingly content with the answer. She looks at him a moment longer, then back at Natasha. Is she really this close to dropping the L-bomb already? Shit, her mom would give her so many disapproving looks if she knew (...that Darcy's dating a broke tattoo artist; she really should mention that one of these days).

A guy with curly dark hair wanders past as Clint is laughing at the culmination of Natasha's story that she missed. She frowns at his back.

“I think I know that guy,” she says, pointing at him as he passes. Steve leans forward a little to look.

“You mean Doc?” Clint asks.

“Yeah, I think so. He works in R&D with one of my friends.” She looks at Steve. “Jane. You remember her, right?”

He grins. “Yes, and I'm not going to say why.”

“Doc!” Clint yells, and the guy (Bruce! His name's Bruce, she's pretty sure) turns around and wanders back over to them.

“Hey,” Bruce says.

“Apparently you work with a friend of Cap's new girlfriend.”

There's about a half second where Natasha glances at Clint, then at Darcy, and Steve tenses just a little, but Darcy swallows down against the funny leap in her chest and laces her fingers through Steve's, and everything goes back to normal.

“Yeah?”

“Jane Foster?” Darcy supplies.

Bruce smiles lazily. “Yeah, I know Jane. Jane's cool.”

Clint pokes him in the leg. “On a scale from one to Charlie Sheen, how stoned are you right now?”

Bruce screws his face up for a second. “Robert Pattinson,” he settles on.

“Okay, good. Wanna sit with us?”

Bruce shrugs, and flops down onto the couch. 

-

Sometime later, an extremely hot guy with his shoulder length blond hair tied back in a ponytail (she normally channels her inner granddad with guys who have hair any longer than past their ears, but he's rocking that look) finishes chugging beer out of a frisbee and throws his arms in the air.

“Kneel before me, for I am your _God_!” he yells.

“Shut the hell up, Thor!” Clint shouts back.

“You call him Thor?” she asks.

“That's his real name,” Steve says.

Natasha nods. “I swiped his passport once to check. He's from Norway.”

“He sounds English,” Darcy says.

“Didn't he used to go to some fancy boarding school in London?” Clint asks no one in particular. “And got, like, expelled, or something?”

“Somethin' like that,” Steve says. “I dunno, I don't think we can judge, can we?”

Clint salutes him with his bottle of beer. “Point taken, Captain.”

Steve smiles, looking a little smug, and shifts a bit, jostling her. Oh, her bladder does not like that.

“Bathroom?” she asks.

“I'll show you,” Natasha says.

-

To say that Darcy feels afraid for her life in the bathroom with Natasha waiting outside would be an exaggeration. 

But not by much. 

She takes a piss, and washes up as quick as she can, though she's a mite uncoordinated and knocks Clint's liquid soap off the basin a couple of times.

Natasha's leaning against the wall nearby when she comes back out. “You need to go?” Darcy asks.

Natasha shakes her head. “I have an iron bladder.”

“Oh,” Darcy says, and then, because, hell, she's already drunk and scared, “why do you guys call Steve 'Captain'?”

“Mm,” Natasha hums. “It started out as Bucky's thing. You know about Bucky, right?”

“Sure,” Darcy says. She doesn't.

Natasha nods. “Well, I think it was because Steve was always the leader of us all, somehow. He's the heart of the group.”

“Which is ironic, considering,” Darcy says, and Natasha frowns. Shit, Darcy, she thinks to herself, why do you try to be funny? It always falls flat. “You know, 'cause of his... Heart disease. Wow, that is not something to joke about, I'm sorry.”

Amazingly, Natasha smiles. “I guess it is ironic.”

“Okay, well, I'm going to go back out there now,” Darcy murmurs, edging away. Maybe she'll get a killer hangover and forget all about this exchange by morning.

“You know,” Natasha says, as if Darcy isn't walking away, “I think we're all happier when Steve is, so thanks. That whole thing with his ex did a real number on him.”

Natasha fixes her gaze on Darcy, and Darcy nods as confidently as she can. “Oh yeah, with the...? Yeah, I know, that was... Well, mustn't keep him waiting,” she mumbles finally, and darts away.

-

Clint gets tired of all the noise a little after midnight. “Okay,” he says, “time to shut it down.”

Steve grins and takes her hand. “C'mon, this is the fun part.”

She'd been dozing a little against his shoulder, because beer makes her sleepy and Steve is very warm and comfy. “Huh? Oh, okay,” she murmurs as he tugs her up.

They end up in the alleyway behind the building with Clint, Natasha, Thor, and an old-fashioned boombox. Darcy looks up (and up and up) at Thor as Clint dicks around with it.

“You know,” she says, “I've got a friend who'd love you.”

Thor cocks an eyebrow. “Talk to me tomorrow when I'm sober, tiny person.”

“Okay, get ready, guys,” Clint says. He fiddles with the volume for a moment and hits play. The obnoxious screech of police sirens fills the air.

“Someone called the cops!” Clint yells.

Steve cups his hands around his mouth. “The cops are coming!”

They soon all get into the swing of things, and ten minutes later about seventy percent of the party goers have hauled ass out of there.

“And stay out,” Clint murmurs. “Okay, I'm gonna go round up the stragglers. Nice to meet you, Darcy.”

“Yeah, you too,” she says.

Clint and Natasha go back inside, quickly caught up by Thor, who asks worriedly, “If I help, can I stay over tonight?”

She turns to Steve with a grin, which fades as soon as he starts coughing. “Are you okay?”

He's trying to muffle it as much as he can with his hands. His eyes are watering a little as he nods. “Fine,” he murmurs, “I'm... fine...”

“Let's get you inside,” she says, wrapping her arm around his waist and helping him back into the building.

By the time they get up to his apartment, the coughing has subsided. She manoeuvres him around scattered clothing on the floor and pushes him lightly onto the bed, which he happily flops down onto.

“Do you need your inhaler?” she ask.

“Nah, I'm good,” he says, catching her hand and giving it a tug. “Wanna stay over?”

He looks up at her with big eyes, blatant manipulation. It totally works.

Steve's apartment is tiny and kind of shitty, but after a party, while a little tipsy, it's pretty much perfect. She settles against him under the covers, cheek against his shoulder, and Steve draws patterns on her arm with his index finger. He says he's giving her an 'imaginary tattoo', but he won't tell her what of.

“Hey, Steve?” she asks after a while.

“Mm?” he hums.

“Who's Bucky?”

Steve doesn't reply for a moment, his fingertip stilling on her arm.

“Natasha mentioned him,” she continues. “Said he was the first one to call you 'Captain'.”

“Yeah...” he murmurs vaguely.

“So, who is he? A friend of yours?”

“Yeah. He's...” He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I never had to tell this story to anyone before...”

She tips her head up and looks at him. “Story?”

“Okay,” he says to himself, then looks down at her. “Okay, so, Buck's my best friend.”

“The guy you gave a crappy tattoo to?”

He smiles. “Yeah. We met in a group home when I was twelve. It was just after Mom died and I was this weedy, skinny little thing. Bucky looked out for me, which was good, 'cause I'd've got myself killed.” He pauses, and Darcy forces herself not to say anything, like 'so where is he now?'. She has a suspicion he's going to get to that. 

“We met Natasha when we were sixteen,” he continues, “and they dated on and off and on and off for years. It drove me crazy to be honest; they were either fighting or fucking.”

She chuckles, and he smiles a little. “Sorry. That's what it felt like though. Bucky was always a little... nuts. Not bad, but volatile. I mean, I was too, but... His dad was an alcoholic, and his mom... I dunno. CPS removed him when he was nine, so he'd been there a couple years already by the time I got there. He was a cute kid, so he got placed in some foster homes, but it never worked out.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Anyway, we all survived childhood, and when the three of us were... twenty, I think, we met Clint, and then Clint and Natasha were on and off, and Bucky and Natasha were on and off, and Buck got a little more... nuts.”

He pauses again, but for longer, and Darcy wonders if he's just going stop talking altogether, but she manages to wait it out. “Bucky got involved with some bad guys,” he says quickly, like he doesn't want her to hear it. “We tried to talk to him about it, even Clint, who Bucky absolutely _hated_ , but then... I got pneumonia, which was complicated by the asthma and it put more stress on my heart and... I was in hospital for a while. And, of course, when I got out I couldn't pay the bill, so Bucky did some stuff he shouldn't have to get the money. He got in deeper with those guys and...” He waves his hand vaguely. “It all got a little crazy for a while. They were the same guys that Clint bought the building off. Clint thought that maybe if he got the building off them, they'd lose interest and move on, but that didn't happen. So, long story short, someone got shot in an armed robbery that Bucky was involved in, and then they got caught. He turned state's evidence against the gang to get a reduced sentence.”

“Okay...” Darcy murmurs.

“Yeah. Oh, and I didn't inherit any money, it was what was leftover after my hospital bills got paid...”

She raises her eyebrows. “You didn't give it to the police?”

He shakes his head. “They didn't know about it, so it would have put more years on Buck's sentence. I... tried to do something good with it, but... I don't think I really pulled it off.” His arm tightens around her shoulders. “You still like me?”

She looks up at him and frowns. “No, I now hate you, dumbass.”

Steve chuckles a little hollowly, his answering smile a little shaky.

“I still like you,” she confirms.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “'Cause, you know, I've never had to tell anyone before. Most everyone I know got pulled into the whole thing.”

“Not even your ex?” she asks, and Steve goes still again. _Shit_ , she thinks, too far, Lewis, too damn far.

“Natasha tell you about Peg, too?”

“She just mentioned that your ex had 'done a number on you'.”

Steve purses his lips. “Okay. God, you're killing me here, Nat,” he mutters.

“So...” Darcy prompts.

“So...” he echoes, glancing down at her. “Peggy was around while all this shit was going on, we met when I was apprenticing at the tattoo place she worked at. It took me a couple of years to work up the courage to ask her out, but I got there, just before everything happened. She stuck by me while I was sick, and when Buck was arrested, but she was from a military family, and she thought Bucky should serve his time, when I just wanted him out soon as possible, and even more than that she thought I should tell the cops about the money, but I refused. So yeah, it all kind of fizzled out.”

“Wow,” she says, smoothing her palm out over his chest. She can feel his heart thumping in his chest. It feels steady enough. “You've had an interesting life.”

He sighs. “I guess so.”

She taps her fingers on his collarbone. “One more question,” she says. Steve groans a little. “Just the one, promise.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“You're not going to go all _Untamed Heart_ on me, are you?”

He laughs. “Nah, I don't like hockey. I prefer baseball.”

“Idiot,” she mutters, knocking her knuckles against his chin. 

-

When it starts to get warm in March, the house parties move up onto the roof. Everyone brings up deckchairs and coolers, and one guy has a grill that he won't let anyone else near.

“Grills,” Steve says, nodding to him.

“What?” she says.

“Clint calls him 'Grills'. I don't know what his real name is.”

Darcy invites Jane along to the next party, and the moment she and Thor lay eyes on each other, it's like puppy lust. Puppy lust is totally a thing, Darcy's calling it right now. Clint has his boombox playing old-fashioned tunes, and Thor holds his hand out to Jane and promises that he's had 'extensive tutelage in dance'. Jane looks all aflutter.

 _I've Got You Under My Skin_ comes on and Steve grimaces.

“What's the face for, Cap?” Clint asks. “Isn't this like your favourite song ever?”

“It's not my _favourite_ ,” he murmurs.

“Really? 'cause I seem to remember Peggy teaching you how to dance to this on this very... roof... uh...” He trails off and pulls a face. Natasha just looks at him and sighs. “That's probably not a good subject to bring up right now...”

“So, Darcy,” Natasha cuts in, “tell us about yourself.”

“Yeah!” Clint latches on. “All Steve's told us is that you're really clever and pretty.”

Steve groans and slides down the deckchair, hands covering his face.

“Funny,” Darcy says, turning to Steve, “because that's exactly what I told my friends about _you_.”

Steve slides even lower.

Natasha leans forward and swats Darcy on the leg. “So?”

Darcy shrugs. “I'm from New Mexico?”

“Oh oh!” Clint says, “meet any aliens?”

“Thor!” Jane shrieks across the roof as he dips her dramatically.

Darcy frowns at them for a moment before looking back at Natasha. “I dunno, high school boys _are_ pretty weird.”

Clint laughs. “So why New York?”

“Why does anyone come to New York? I watched a lot of _Friends_ as a kid. I met Jane while she was doing research in New Mexico, and when she got the job at Stark, she said maybe she could get me a job there too.”

“Good friend,” Natasha says. “So, is Stark as much of an asshole as he seems on TV?”

“Never met him. But Pepper Potts has been with him for like fifteen years, so I guess that he isn't a total jerk. I'm totally hot for Pepper Potts.”

Steve turns to her, looking alarmed. She waves him off. “Don't worry, I'm totally out her league.”

“Oh, well then I've got nothing to worry about,” he drawls, and leans over to grab a beer from the cooler. Natasha smacks his hand. “ _Ow_ , what?”

“You've already had three, you know can't drink on your medication.”

“I can drink in moderation,” he say irritably, as Natasha drags the cooler out of his reach.

“I'm moderating you,” she says airily. She looks at Darcy. “You have to watch him, he gets very stubborn about things.”

She nods, eyeing him. He huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “I'm getting that, yeah.”

-

After a couple of months, she starts to get a pretty good picture of why Steve is so broke. He never charges anyone.

“I charge people,” he says, hunched over Natasha's back, inking the outline of a black widow spider. ('Because I kill and eat men after sex, and I feel like prospective suitors deserve some sort of warning,' she told Darcy when she was showing her Steve's designs.)

Darcy spreads a blanket over her legs and sinks lower into the couch. Steve doesn't put the heat on unless it's 'absolutely necessary', i.e., he's frozen solid. “So, how much is this costing Natasha?”

“Well, I don't charge _friends_ ,” he replies.

“She's right,” Natasha says. “You know I can afford it.”

“Oh, don't you start,” he mutters, dabbing the excess ink from her back. “I had a paying customer just last week. He wants a full back, that's gonna be at least six hundred dollars.”

“What about the people you turn away?” Darcy asks.

Steve rubs his nose on his arm and switches to red ink. “I don't turn people away, I just tell eighteen year olds who want their girlfriends' names tattooed on their face that they should come back in a couple of weeks. They never do.”

“They're probably just going to someone else who's willing to help them ruin their lives,” Natasha says.

“Maybe,” Steve murmurs.

“And you wasted hours showing me designs when you could have been getting paid,” Darcy continues.

He smiles, beginning to shade the spider's body in red. “That's 'cause I had a crush on you.”

“Well, you probably lost a few hundred dollars because you were trying to flirt with me.”

“Worth it,” he says.

“Aw,” Natasha murmurs.

Darcy gets up from her cocoon on the couch and comes over to kiss him on the cheek. “You still need paying customers, though,” she adds.

-

“What about a payment plan? Can I... Oh... Yeah... No, I get that... Yeah... No, that's everything, thanks for your help, bye.”

She opens her eyes to slits and watches Steve sitting on the end of the bed. He sighs and drops his phone back onto the snarl of blankets.

“What was that about?” she asks.

He glances around. “Hey, I didn't wake you, did I?” he says softly, crawling back up the bed to her.

“I was waking up anyway,” she says, and Steve hums happily, burying his nose into her hair. She taps him on the jaw. “What was that about?” she repeats.

“Oh,” he sighs, lifting his head a little, “bank called, they're threatening to turn my credit card debt over to debt collectors.”

“And they won't let you get on a payment plan?”

“'parently when you fuck up two kinds of payment plans, they don't let you try a third. Who knew?”

She digs her fingers into his hair and he sighs again, dropping his head back against the pillow. “So, what are you going to do?”

“Sell stuff, I guess,” he says, muffled by her hair.

She looks around the sparse room. “ _What_ are you going to sell?”

He snorts and rolls onto his back. “I guess the radio, might be able to get a couple hundred bucks for that,” he says, throwing his thumb over his shoulder at it.

“That was your Granddad's, Steve, you love that thing!”

He shrugs. “I think I'm gonna sell my bike, too.”

“ _Steve_ ,” she says, frowning at him.

He shrugs again. “I need the money, I'm already late on the rent for the shop, I gotta get it paid. I gotta pay for meds again next month, I gotta eat. And I should probably give Clint some money for rent sometime.”

She kisses his forehead. “We'll figure something out,” she promises.

-

But the thing is, they don't, and before Steve can get around the selling his stuff (which is a couple of weeks later, because he is dragging the hell out of his feet about posting the listings on Craigslist), he gets sick with the flu, and it's like fucking battle stations in the building. T plus fifteen hours after his first sniffle, Natasha barges into the apartment with armfuls of groceries.

“You didn't have to do that...” he murmurs, tissue practically glued to his running nose. He starts to get up, and Darcy pushes him back down. He pouts at her.

Natasha looks at Darcy and arches an eyebrow, then looks back at him. “I don't need any more of my boyfriends going to prison. Just stay in bed and don't get pneumonia again.”

A couple of days later, Clint catches up to Darcy as she's coming into the building with Steve's heart medication (over two hundred dollars for enough pills to stop his heart from exploding for a couple of months; it's no wonder he's broke!).

“Hey,” Clint says, holding the door open for her.

“Hey, Clint, thanks.”

The common areas of the building have been looking increasingly shady in the last couple of weeks, ever since a pipe in Grills's bathroom burst and lots of yellowy water started dripping down the wall on the first floor. Darcy has a pretty nice pad in Manhattan, in a nice, clean building that doesn't throw impromptu 'we survived the week' parties, but she can't imagine taking Steve out of Brooklyn.

Clint takes a bag of shopping from her too, and follows her into the elevator. “So, hey, how much is Steve short on the rent for the shop?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Uh, about eight hundred?”

Clint gets his wallet out of his back pocket, and counts out eight hundred dollars in fifties, then hands it to her.

“Uh...” she repeats, taking the wad of cash.

“Tell him to pay me back when he can.”

“Uh huh,” she murmurs. “I just don't want to know where you get your money from, do I?”

“Archery,” he says, as the elevator trundles to a stop on Steve's floor. “After you,” he adds, holding out his arm.

Thor brings soup. “I don't know you very well, but everyone seems quite concerned about your health, so I made you what my mother made me when I was ill: fish soup,” he says, and presents Steve with a tupperware box of soup with pieces of salmon in it.

“Oh...” Steve says half slumped against the door frame, and turns his head to cough long and hard. Darcy relieves Thor of the box with a strained smile. “Thanks, Thor,” he finally manages to choke out.

“It's nothing. Salmon has lots of zinc in it, good for when you're ill.”

“Really thoughtful,” Darcy says, and pats him on his rock like biceps. “Anyway, big guy, Steve's got to get some rest.”

“Oh yes, right,” Thor says. “Feel better, Captain.”

Steve salutes him as Darcy closes the door. When Thor is safely out of earshot, he eyes the box in her hands. “I don't wanna eat that.”

“I know you don't, go lie down.”

As it turns out, the soup is actually really good, but Steve's totally lost his sense of taste, and anyway, he gets really stubborn and childish about not eating things with chunks in them. More for her, Darcy figures.

Bruce brings round a bag full of medicine and checks Steve's temperature (103 – Jesus, he doesn't do anything by halves).

“I didn't know you were that kind of doctor,” Darcy says.

“I'm not, I just picked some stuff up over the years. How are you feeling, Steve?”

Steve blinks heavily. “I'm not sure if you're really here or if I'm hallucinating...”

Even Lorraine comes around with a boxset of _Breaking Bad_.

He keeps drawing while he's sick, but they come out really crazy-looking, in stark contrast with his normally pretty realistic designs. They're all psychedelic and Dalí-esque, and Darcy guesses that he's tripping out pretty strongly on a mixture of flu hallucinations and whatever the fuck kind of drugs that Bruce supplied him. 

Sleeping next to him at night is like being in bed with a freight train – a six foot two, sweaty freight train who talks in his sleep. She definitely goes to work sleep-deprived a few times over the two weeks that he's ill. By the time he's all bright-eyed and cheerful again, Darcy just wants to curl up in a ball and not get out of bed for a week.

“I'm sorry,” Steve says, wrapping his arms around her. “Thanks for looking after me.”

She sighs, leaning into him. “Oh, I didn't mind. Much.”

He hugs her tighter, swaying the two of them on the spot. “You didn't have to, though.”

“I think I did...” She kisses his shoulder and looks up at him. “You know, your friends really love you.”

He smiles. “Yeah, I know they do.”

“So do I.”

His smile goes a little shaky, his eyelashes fluttering a little as he blinks rapidly. “I love you too,” he says softly.

“Okay, good.” She pats him on the chest. “You've got to have a shower, though, you really stink.”

-

Jane gets a tattoo at the beginning of the summer, an intricately detailed picture of the cosmos that spreads along her collarbone. It takes Steve a three hour session to do it, and Jane forcibly pays Lorraine for it upfront.

Darcy loves watching Steve work; he seems so at peace when he's got a tattoo gun in his hand. Under any other circumstances, Darcy's pretty sure that Steve would be blushing up a storm sitting there with a woman's bra in his face.

Darcy settles on the couch as usual when she's in the shop, and pages through Steve's sketchbook. His surreal flu drawings are still in there, and she comes across one that really jumps out at her: an anatomically correct heart with wings and a scroll across the middle that reads 'leaky valves!'. It's bizarrely cute; she grins at it.

Half an hour later, Steve is finally finished with Jane's tattoo. He wipes it clean and covers it with a bandage, and then gives her antibacterial soap and a very serious talk about aftercare. Jane has a barely contained smile on her face for his entire speech.

When he's finally done, she grabs her bag, and stands up. “Well, Thor's taking me bowling, so I better get going.” 

“Godspeed,” Darcy calls.

Jane waves her off and heads out.

Steve peels his gloves off and starts cleaning everything up, meticulously disinfecting each instrument.

“Hey,” Darcy says.

“Hey,” he replies, glancing around from the sink with a soft smile.

“I know what tattoo I want.”

His eyebrows jump. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She turns the sketchbook towards him. “This.”

His eyebrows draw together, and he leaves his work at the sink and comes over to her, shaking his hands dry. “That ugly thing?”

“It's not ugly,” she says, “it's your heart.”

He sits down beside her. “It's my ugly, crappy heart. And I thought you said that you didn't want a heart on your hip?”

“I don't want it on my hip, I want it on my arm,” she says, smiling. “And this is different. This... has got some meaning to it.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, still frowning.

“Yeah.”

“But...” He sighs. “What if you... what if we don't...”

She reaches out and takes hold of his chin. “I think we will.”

“I think we will too...” he murmurs. “But a tattoo's not just for Christmas...”

“Ha, ha,” she says slowly. “I'm not getting your name tattooed onto my face, okay, it'll be fine. Unless you really don't _want_ me to...”

“I want you to,” he says, and kisses her gently. “Definitely want you to.”

“Good, 'cause I want you to do it now.”

“Now?” He blinks. “Okay... I'll tell Lorraine to close up.”

He asks her three more times if she's sure before he starts, but once he begins he doesn't say anything at all, only answering with vague smiles every so often.

It doesn't hurt nearly as much as she thought it would.

“You've got a high pain tolerance,” he says as he finishes up, wiping the area clean and telling her not to look yet. “And I don't want to sound too full of myself, but I am pretty good at this. I can barely even feel it any more when I tattoo myself.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Yourself?” she repeats.

“Yeah. I mean, obviously I didn't do all of 'em myself, not the ones on my back, but after how badly I fucked up Buck's tattoo, I thought that maybe I should start on myself, just in case. Why d'you think I don't have any on my right arm?”

“You're a crazy person.”

“Crazy in love,” he replies, tongue pressed to the corner of his mouth.

“And an idiot,” she adds. “Can I see yet?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He grabs a hand mirror and holds it up to her arm. She reaches out and tilts the mirror just right.

“Wow,” she murmurs, taking in every line of it. It's gross and awesome. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, and leans forward to kiss him. 

He smiles against her mouth for a moment, then pulls back and grabs a bandage. “Okay, time to cover it up.”

“You're going to get really obnoxious about aftercare, aren't you?”

He sticks the bandage on very carefully. “Incredibly obnoxious.”

-

The money that Clint gave her gets Steve through another month, but by the beginning of July, he's back where he began. He gets an appointment with a loan advisor, but he doesn't seem very hopeful.

She takes the afternoon off to go with him, swinging by the shop at midday. It's a shame that he doesn't have any other tattoo artists, because a trip to the bank means closing for the afternoon, but having to pay anyone beyond Lorraine would suck worse, at the moment.

He answers the door in an undershirt, green stuff smeared all up the left side of his neck.

“What's going on here?” she asks as he lets her by.

“I have to be an upstanding member of society if I'm going to get a loan I have no right asking for. That means covering the tattoos up,” he says, his accent disappearing entirely.

“Whoa, dude, what happened your voice?”

He shrugs, closing the door behind her. “Can't sound like some dumb punk when I go in there.”

She frowns at him. “Number one, what? And number two, I do not like this fancy, not-from-Brooklyn Steve.”

He grins. “'preciate that. Hopefully Mr Coulson the loan guy will like fancy Steve, though.” He holds up a bottle of foundation. It looks a little too dark for his never-seen-the-sun skin. “D'you mind helping me with this?”

“Sure. You know, I always thought that mascara would really make those eyelashes of yours pop.”

Coulson does like fancy Steve. He practically has hearts in his eyes as Steve talks, in fact. Darcy doesn't blame him – on a bad day Steve is delightful, and when he turns on the charm, he's dazzling. Apparently the guy, who's wearing an extremely nice suit for someone who works at an independent bank in downtown Brooklyn (slogan: 'we shield you from the bad guys!'), has always wanted a tattoo but can never find the time. Steve, of course, suggests that the guy comes over one day to look at designs. He pushes his sleeve back and shows Coulson some of his tattoos, and Coulson very effusively compliments them.

He does not, however, approve the loan. Steve's business plan is apparently 'lacking' and his books are 'not encouraging'.

“I really do wish you luck,” he says as he shows them out of his office.

“Thanks,” Steve says, shaking his hand. “And you should think about swinging by one day. I do consultations free of charge.”

Coulson nods and thanks him, and Darcy can see what he's thinking as if there's a little thought bubble above his head: 'this is why your business is failing'.

“We'll think of something else,” she promises as they walk away from the bank.

“Nah,” he says. “I think I'm just gonna give up before I completely screw myself over. I'll get a job at one of the big places in Manhattan. Nothin' wrong with that. You know, Philips offered to take me on full time – that was the guy I apprenticed with, by the way – but I was too thick-headed to realise that I had no idea how to run a business. Should've taken that job.”

She puts her arm around his waist. “You'd probably still be with your ex if you had.”

He frowns. “That's... Okay, I take back what I said just now.”

“You wouldn't like to still be with your hot, sophisticated, English girlfriend?” She's not insecure, not really, and she never has been before, but all the stories she's heard from his friends make his relationship with this Peggy Carter character out to be pretty epic.

“No,” he says simply, and kisses her temple. “Truth is, I don't regret a thing that's happened.”

-

The air conditioning in the office breaks down in the middle of the month, and stays broken for five solid days. The company's worth billions, but they can't get an engineer out here before everyone dies of dehydration? Darcy calls bull-fucking-shit on that.

Each day that it's been broken, she's worn progressive less clothing, from a shirt with no cardigan to a shirt with three quarter length sleeves to a shirt with capped sleeves to, today, a tank top and they can fire her if they've got a problem with that. 

“Why on Earth is so hot in here?” someone asks. Darcy's desk is out in an open plan area, (which she absolutely hates; at least cubicles give a little bit of privacy) and she's got used to keeping her head down and ignoring the conversations of others unless they're particularly juicy.

“A/C's broken, Ms. Potts.”

Darcy's head shoots up. Pepper Potts is almost close enough for her to touch. She grabs her iPod and looks in the polished back of it to check her make-up. Still melting off her face. Awesome.

Potts sweeps past in impossibly high heels and a sharp, tailored suit Darcy is fairly sure exists solely to clothe her and no one else. Darcy's mouth might be open a little.

Potts stops and turns back, meeting Darcy's eyes. Darcy tries for a not-awkward smile and nod of acknowledgement and fails spectacularly. Potts walks over to her desk.

Where the fuck is the eject button on this spinny chair?

“Good afternoon, Ms...?” Potts says.

“Lewis,” Darcy squeaks.

“Ms. Lewis.” Her eyes drift over her and settle on her arm. Darcy follows her gaze to... her tattoo. _Shit_.

She grabs her cardigan off the back of the chair and pulls it on. “I'm sorry! I normally cover it up, but it's been so hot in here and-- I know it's kind of gross to look at but it's an... in-joke...” The effort that she makes to stop herself from babbling is Herculean. She's got to get points for that at least, right?

Ms. Potts smiles. “Tony's been talking about getting another tattoo, and I just know he's going to get some other hideous thing while he's drunk... Who did yours?”

“Uh uh...” Darcy opens and closes her mouth like a fish a couple of times because getting a grip. “Steve Rogers over at Captain's Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn.”

“And he does good work?”

“Oh yeah, he's really talented, and he's really nice and patient and cleans everything like three times and... I should probably mention that he's my boyfriend, too...”

“Hm,” Potts responds. “I might give him a call. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Lewis.”

“You too,” Darcy says in a strangled voice, and briefly shakes the hand that Potts offers.

Potts turns back to the assistant with her. “For God's sake, get the A/C fixed now.”

Darcy waits until Potts's out the door to grab her phone and text Steve. 

_HOLY FUCKIN SHIT YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED_

-

Steve cleans every inch of the shop, on the off chance that Potts does actually follow through. Everyone pitches in, and for a few days, it seems like Steve's forgotten about jacking it all in and going to work for the man. As much as any tattoo place can qualify as 'the man', at least.

But by the next weekend, they haven't heard anything, and even Steve's cheerful demeanour is cracking.

“Don't wanna go to work,” he mumbles into the pillow on Saturday morning. “No one's gonna come anyway.”

She traces the outlines of the stars on his back. “They might. Come on, we'll get banana smoothies, my treat.”

“Mmph,” he replies, but gets up anyway.

She feeds him several banana smoothies to make up for the absolute dearth of customers. They have literally one week before Steve's going to give it up, and she simply cannot believe that universe doesn't want Steve to be happy.

By mid afternoon, they end up on the couch in the back room, him with his head in her lap and his legs hooked over the armrest, a book in hand, while Darcy scrolls through her emails on her StarkPad.

“Steve!” Lorraine screeches, “Get out here!”

Steve almost knocks Darcy's StarkPad out of her hands as he sits up. 

“Jesus, Lor, is the place on f--” Darcy hears him peter out as he gets out there, his long legs carrying him faster than her stubby ones. She bumps into his back where he's stopped in the doorway, and leans around him.

Pepper Potts is standing in the shop in a loose shirt and leggings that would give Darcy some serious camel toe but are perfect on Potts, with Tony Stark lurking behind her, peering at things from behind his aviators.

“Are you free, Mr Rogers?” Potts asks.

“Hah...” he mumbles. “Sure.”

She smiles. She is so perfect. “This is my partner,” she says, gesturing at Tony. “Tony, for God's sake, take your sunglasses off, we're inside.”

Stark sighs, and pulls them off in the most dramatic, David Caruso way possible. “Hi,” he says sniffily, and uses his sunglasses to point at a wall of designs. “These aren't very impressive. Pep made it sound like you were some kind of tattoo savant.”

“Those are the boring ones,” Darcy says, “the good ones are over here.” When Steve doesn't move, she takes hold of the back of his t-shirt and walks him over there.

Stark hums under his breath as he looks at the wall. “Yeah, these are okay.”

Steve frowns a little. “Thanks...?”

“Believe me, it's a compliment,” Potts says, patting Stark on the back. “Be nice,” she murmurs.

“I'm nice,” Stark says. He looks up at Steve, who's about half a head taller than him; Stark doesn't look very impressed by this. “I like your sleeve, very colourful.”

Darcy thanks God that it was too hot for Steve to wear one of his many long sleeved button downs. 

“I like colour,” Steve says.

“Mmhm, me too,” Stark says, narrowing his eyes a little. “So, I hear that you're about to go bankrupt.”

“Um,” Steve says, glancing at Darcy. She shrugs; she didn't tell Potts anything about that.

“I have my sources,” Potts says, looking at her phone, “and they say that your business is failing rather spectacularly. Which is strange, because you seem to be a rather good artist, from what I can tell here, and the few reviews I found online couldn't sing your praises enough.”

“I...” Steve shrugs. “I dunno, I guess I'm just no good at running a business.”

“Maybe,” Potts says, “or maybe you just need enough money to advertise and employ some more people.”

“Well... sure...” Steve says, “money's always good...”

Potts nods, still looking at her phone. “Maybe if this goes well, you'll be getting a new investor.” She reaches out and tugs on Stark's sleeve. “Come on, Tony, we've got some fires to put out at the office.”

“Oh, we're going?” Stark says. He slips his sunglasses back on and nods to Steve. “I like robots, by the way, in case you maybe want to work on some stuff before I come back.”

“Sure,” Steve murmurs. He watches them go for a couple of seconds because calling out, “thanks!”

Potts smiles and nods, and then they're out the door.

Steve is silent for a moment, chewing on his lip, before he turns to Darcy. “Did that just happen? Darcy, did that just happen?” he asks.

“I think so,” she says, “in fact, yeah, I'm pretty sure it did.”

He grins and hugs her, lifting her clean off her feet. She clasps her arms around his neck as she laughs. 

“See, we thought of something. Sort of,” she murmurs before she kisses him and kisses him.

“Does this mean I'm gonna get a raise?” Lorraine calls from her desk.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who haven't seen _Untamed Heart_ , Christian Slater plays a guy with a heart defect who (spoilers!) dies after going to a hockey game.
> 
> I played fast and loose with MCU, a bunch of nineties movies about disaffected twenty-somethings, and Matt Fraction's _Hawkeye_ which, if you aren't already reading, you should be.


End file.
